For countless years the planet Cersi had been the home of three
intelligent species, keeping a careful Balance: the powerful Tikitik and
Oud, and the weaker Om'ray, living in scattered settlements at the mercy
of their neighbors. However, the new power of teleportation developing
among the Om'ray has triggered a disruption of the Balance, as related in
the previous books of this trilogy, Reap the Wild Wind and Riders of
the Storm. Now the more powerful of the Om'ray flee the disintegrating
situation on Cersi for the wider world, of which they have only recently
become aware, and are about to launch themselves on the universe as the
Clan featured in Czerneda's earlier books of the Trade Pact Universe.

Both the Tikitik and the Oud are presented as convincingly alien,
but with the details of each species left vague enough to give the
reader's imagination room for play. The humanoid Om'ray are also
portrayed as different from us, that difference being the mental
connections between them, particularly between parent and child and
between those Joined as a mated couple.

Aryl Sarc, the first of the Om'ray to discover how to teleport,
is given the extra burden of being designated the official speaker of
her Clan to the other species, which now seem to be going into conflict
with each other, grabbing and transforming areas of land between the
swampy terrain favored by the Tikitik and dry plains preferred by the
Oud, without regard for the needs of the Om'ray Clans within their
borders.

The Om'ray, or M'hiray, as those with the new ability now call
themselves, become worried when teleportation, originally seen as a means
of emergency escape, becomes a game for children, and a lazy mode of
travel for adults. Even so, they only leave Cersi when it becomes clear
that the end of the Balance on Cersi could mean the end of the Om'ray
there as well.

This book ends rather abruptly, with the M'hiray hiding
out in Human space, on a planet whose location they obtained from the
mind of their one Human friend. The reader is thus invited to go enjoy
the books of the Clan that take place later, if s/he hasn't already done
so.

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